


and darker night is near

by Kyele



Series: heirsverse [5]
Category: The Musketeers (2014), d'Artagnan Romances (Three Musketeers Series) - All Media Types
Genre: Fatalism, Introspection, Isolation, Loneliness, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 07:11:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4910056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyele/pseuds/Kyele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A missing scene from <i><a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2718833">ye heirs of glory</a></i>: after learning that Rochefort has targeted him, Treville confronts the probability that he's going to die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and darker night is near

**Author's Note:**

> This is set immediately after the end of [Chapter 16](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2718833/chapters/7077539) of [_heirs_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2718833) and is canon to the main story.
> 
> At the end of chapter 16, Athos brings Treville Ella's (Adele's) letter informing him that Rochefort has discovered Treville's sex and connections with the Underground and the Resistance. He and Athos have a brief conversation (in which Athos agrees to do nothing rash and leave the situation mainly in Treville's hands) before Treville sends Athos back to d'Artagnan, who was injured couriering the letter.

Athos may be preoccupied, but he doesn’t forget to close Treville’s door behind him as he leaves.

Jean is appropriately grateful for small favors. As focused as Athos has been over young d’Artagnan, it’s surprising the Musketeer can remember to put one foot in front of the other. Jean remembers still how distracted he’d been when he – when he and Armand –

It takes Jean a moment to realize that the sudden pain in his hands comes from where he’s gripping the desk hard enough that his knuckles have turned white. He releases the desk and forbids himself to gasp at the pain of sensation returning. The loss of control has led to its own punishment; the balance is maintained.

Balance, and control, must always be maintained. Or else –

 _Or else what_? his own mocking inner voice asks him. _The Inquisition will discover you?_

Jean has never ceased to fear the Inquisition, even after he’d learned the truth about the so-fearsome Bloody Cardinal Richelieu. His fear had merely taken on a new face. It hadn’t taken long at all after he’d mated with Armand to learn the names of his new enemies. George, Conde de Toreno, Comte de Rochefort, then-lately created Inquisitor of Lille, had been foremost among them.

And now Lille has identified Treville as his next target. Jean knows too well how this will play out. Their chances of protecting Armand and the wider Resistance are excellent, provided Jean is able to keep his cool and hold his tongue. But though Armand will no doubt make Jean all sorts of promises, swear all sorts of protection, Jean’s lived in this world for too long to delude himself. His chances of survival are small. Rochefort will keep Treville alive for as along as he thinks Treville might lead him to his mate. When Rochefort realizes that that will never happen, he’ll have no reason not to denounce Treville and try his best with torture.

Treville will have to start drawing down the Musketeers’ corps, lest they all go down with him. Thin them too far and Rochefort will become suspicious. But novices can be funneled to other regiments. Older Musketeers may retire. Some in their prime can be promoted into different positions. For those who remain, there are contingency plans, long ago developed but regularly reviewed and updated. Charlotte and Adele will handle it personally; Jean can trust them to do their best. They know what the cost of failure would be for his Musketeers.

Jean will have to begin making contingency plans for himself, too. He has faith in his ability to protect Armand, even under Rochefort’s worst. Otherwise he would never have accepted Armand’s suit. But better by far not to be taken alive at all…

Even in the bright light of his office’s well-built fire, the nightmares sneak out of the dark corners of Jean’s mind, vying to be the first to torment him. By day he can repel them, but by night they’ll have their way. Which will it be tonight? The one where Rochefort catches Jean at court, and he’s dragged away under the helpless eyes of everyone who would otherwise assist him? The one where Rochefort tracks Jean to the hunting-lodge somehow and bursts in on he and Armand mid-heat? One of the infinite variety of nightmares of Jean in the Bastille, under Rochefort’s control, with the endless array of torturous implements close at hand?

Jean forces himself to breathe deep. Reminds himself how fortunate he’s been to make it so far. How old is he now? Nearing fifty, certainly. Perhaps past it. His brother would be fifty-one, had he lived… Armand’s sire had been thirty-three when the Inquisition had laid its fatal trap for he and his companions. Jussac’s father thirty-eight when he’d died at François’ side. And Jean’s lost count of the number of earnest hopeful youths he’s seen cut down in the Resistance’s service, few of them past their thirtieth year.

There’s a small vial of fast-acting poison in the drawer to Jean’s right. Just in case anyone is foolish enough to try to cut their way to Jean in the heart of the garrison. Jean carries another with him always. Jean will play the game with Rochefort, spin out the days of his life for as long as he can, and hope for a miracle. But he must acknowledge the far more likely eventuality that this is the beginning of the end.

And Jean’s old. Perhaps it’s time.

 _No._ The rage that bubbles up in him at the thought is as searing and potent as it had ever been as a pup. Once Jean’s old nanny had taken him to see the body of a farmer’s daughter who hadn’t been a daughter at all. The body had been displayed for three days in the town square of Oloron-Sainte-Marie by order of the newly installed Inquisitor of Toulouse, so that all might see that the winds were changing and the Inquisition’s power was not to be flaunted any longer.

 _Remember,_ his nanny had told him then. _Fighting is not optional for a throwback. You’ll die either way; the only question is what you’ll regret when you do._

Nearly fifty years later, Jean still remembers that poor Alpha’s body lying split open in the sun, the flies buzzing around her entrails, the terrible mess they’d made of her genitals. It still fuels his drive to tear down the Inquisition brick by brick.

But there’s nothing to destroy here. No one to rend. No operations to plan, no clever strategy to devise. Jean has no outlet for his anger. He forces it to dissipate, a technique he’s had to perfect over the course of his life. But when it goes, the cold hollow emptiness that it leaves behind is almost harder to bear.

It’s been like this more and more as the years go by. The successes he and Armand have had begin to pale against the reality of how much _farther_ there is to go. Achievements that had seemed momentous at the time now begin to seem as if they’re mere pebbles stacked at the side of a mountain. Jean has never fooled himself that they’ll wipe out the Inquisition in his lifetime, but God, when he’d found out the Resistance is real, he’d thought he’d at least be certain – when it came his time to die – that he’d made some kind of a _difference_.

Jean’s lived side by side with death his whole life. He’d been born a throwback, and then chosen not to merely cower in his country estate hoping to be passed over unnoticed. He’d gone to work for other throwbacks. On his own. With the Musketeers. With the Underground. With the Resistance. Every mission has involved risk; every fight could have been his last. Even something as simple as bathing can unmask him. His body tries to betray him with heats, with pups, with wide hips and thick thighs and a rounded chest. Jean doesn’t need to be in battle to be in danger: he is in danger with every beat of his heart.

And yet. With all of that, he has never looked death as closely in the eye as he does now, as he gazes into the fireplace at the ashes of Adele’s letter of warning.

 _Rochefort knows about you_ , the letter had said, in its coded, hopefully-secure phrases. _He plans to trace you back to your mate._

And then the code that means: _go silent, go to ground, make no contact, attempt no action_.

Jean has written that code into letters before. Murmured it into an ear in passing. Disguised it as an RSVP. Sent it as a length of ribbon to a no-longer-young Red Guard who’d been a Musketeer, once.

Jean’s never received it himself. The shock of it is unexpected. He’s never realized exactly how alone that directive makes someone. How abandoned.

His heart twists in his chest. Abruptly the hollow feeling has a name: loneliness. God, how he wishes Armand were here tonight.

He touches his breastbone, over his heart, the place where his mate resides. Gently he sends a nudge along the bond. He gets a quick flash of warmth in return, and his heart lifts, but it plummets again in the next moment when there also comes a resigned drawing-away. Armand is still in public. Wherever he is, whatever he’s doing, he cannot set it aside to focus on his bond. And with Rochefort’s eye on Jean, there will be no opportunity for physical contact later. Treville will not be able to concoct an excuse to visit the Palais-Cardinal, nor draw Richelieu aside to speak in privacy on some matter of state. Rochefort is so paranoid that he requires no evidence to jump to conclusions. Their saving grace until now has been that Rochefort is so often wrong in his leaps as to render his correct guesses immaterial; he’s the boy who’d cried wolf. But when it comes to Treville – when it comes to Richelieu – when it comes to the Resistance entire, Jean must not take even the smallest of chances. He’d promised Armand, when they’d mated. Sworn it on his life and his hope of salvation. It’s no less than Armand asks of himself. Young, eager, and desperately in love, Jean hadn’t thought twice about giving the same.

Thirty years later, Jean reaches into himself for strength and finds to his dreary unsurprise that he’s very little left after all.

Jean’s grown so very tired of being strong.

He gets up from behind his desk and goes around to his door. Athos had closed it, but it only locks from within; Jean throws the bolts himself, then crosses his office into his private chambers. Those he locks, too, and bars the windows. Secure in his privacy he changes quickly for bed. Then he lifts out the piles of clothes at the bottom of his small wardrobe until the base of it is bare.

The hidden cabinet is so well hidden and difficult to open that it takes Jean a few moments to manage it himself. He doesn’t come into it often. What it contains is as dangerous in its own way as the most highly protected state secret.

Jean lifts the false bottom out of the wardrobe only long enough to withdraw the cedar box within. Long and flat, it contains only enough space for something fairly small. Wide, yes. But no thicker than a folded piece of cloth.

How convenient, then, that that’s exactly what it contains.

Jean lifts the scarf out gently. This isn’t one of his. His ordinary clothes are all stored openly in the wardrobe, no secrets among them. His more special garments are at the Palais-Cardinal, both the camouflage he keeps for Resistance work and the more traditional Omegan dress he prefers for special occasions. Knowledge of his people’s past and connection with his sex’s traditions had been by no means the least of the many gifts Armand has given Jean. As a pup Jean had been so lost. So alone. Adrift in the world, with nothing to anchor him. No family. No true friends. No history, no culture, no God.

And then there had been Armand. Who had breathed old knowledge from his first breath and drank tradition from his carrier’s breast. Who as a pup had studied the lineage of the thirteen tribes and learned the writing of their priests so that he could read their holy books uncorrupted by Betan mistranslation. Who’d been so tightly interwoven with the fabric of their people and their history that he has never known what it means to be adrift. Lonely, yes. But unsure of his place in the warp and weft of fate? Loose and unconnected to the grand sweep of history? Bereft of connections, of companions, of willing hands eager to help? Never.

It had taken a long time for Jean to be able to explain any of this to Armand. When Armand had understood, one of the first things he’d done had been to give Jean this scarf. Not because of anything special about its weaving or its color or its craftsmanship. Because of another quality it possesses.

Jean wraps the scarf around his lower face, and lets himself breathe.

Cedar preserves scent. It doesn’t hurt that there’s a cedar note to Armand’s scent, either, or that that’s the element that’s spread throughout their small pack, becoming held in common. Jean closes the box and sets it aside. Then, in the rare moment of weakness made possible by solitude and security, he curls up on the bed and breathes deep.

In addition to the cedar there’s allspice, the spicy element unique to Armand that means _mate_ and _safe_ and _home_. Underneath rests a smoky scent tying it all together. Armand says that scent comes from Jean, the gunpowder tang softening for Armand to something more reminiscent of the incense burned during Mass. From the pack Jean has gained the cedar in return, which Armand says reminds him of wood smoke. And from Armand Jean has gained the faintest, barest hint of spice. Just enough to tell those with the noses to scent that Jean has a mate somewhere. An Alpha who loves him. Enough to accept him, enough to bind them together, to take Jean’s skin between their teeth and sink deep. Armand had loved Jean enough in the end to conquer his own fears. Armand may never have doubted where he stands in history’s sweep, but he’d believed himself sentenced to stand there alone, without relief from the buffeting winds of fate.

They’d both had so many scars, to start out with, and the years have added so many more. The distance that must be between them kills them both a little more each day. And never more so than in times like this, when one of them is in danger and they can’t even seek comfort from each other.

Jean realizes, at some point, that he’s started weeping softly. He rolls over onto his back and stares up at his ceiling, ignoring the way tears slide down the side of his face. Incongruously he wonders what Athos would think of his beloved Captain if the Musketeer could see Jean now. His Musketeers view Treville as a sort of elevated being, superior and untouchable. To them he’s almost inhuman. He can’t be hurt. He certainly doesn’t shed tears.

Pups always view their parents so, Jean supposes. And Jean’s loved them all as his own pups. But part of that love is keeping them from the dangerous things they’re not ready to handle. Athos’ pack is beginning to come close to the truth, at least as far as the Underground is concerned. Still they know nothing about the Resistance. Athos will, one day, if he stays the course and inherits the Underground from Treville. He’ll probably tell the others. What will they think of Jean, when they learn the truths he’s been keeping from them all these years? Will they come down to Jean’s grave to shout and curse? Will they understand?

Jean hopes Athos tells his packmates. This is a terrible thing to have to do alone. Safer, perhaps, with Armand carefully walled away. But Armand has Robert at his side. Bernajoux and Boisrenard are under his nominal command. Adele and Charlotte come and go as they can, and always from the Palais-Cardinal, not the garrison, for they must not run into Athos or Aramis…

It’s not Armand who is walled away. It’s Jean. Jean who’s kept carefully apart like a princess in a tower, surrounded by a regiment who wield shields of perfect ignorance and swords of loyalty to their surrogate carrier. Armand will never admit that he might have priorities other than the survival and struggle of their people as a whole. But Jean can see the protections laid around him. They are magnificent. And they are failing very magnificently indeed, because Jean stands exposed to their enemies, and all that the walls around him mean in the end is that he must do so alone.

Armand’s scent helps. With every breath Jean is reminded: Armand loves him. As Jean loves Armand. The Betas sing songs about love. They write books and recite poems, and Jean marvels at their bravery, for they embark upon love as a blind man navigates a river. Jean does not have to guess whether his mate loves him. Jean can feel it in his soul. More than the sight of the sun in the sky, more than the air in their lungs, more than the taste of water quenching a thirst, Jean values the knowledge of Armand’s love.

Jean breathes deeply. Basks in that knowledge. Uses it to soothe himself to calmness, to patience, and then eventually to slumber.

But even with all the serenity the knowledge of Armand’s love can give him, when morning dawns, Jean still wakes in his bed alone.


End file.
